Garden Variety?

During a two-hour lecture at the Center for Architecture, Françoise Raynaud and Joshua Thornbill of Paris-based architecture practice Loci Anima presented a multitude of projects, loosely grouped by project typology and catchy ecological headings such as “respecting the ground” and “continuity of the soil.” The office’s oeuvre can be parsed not through a singular aesthetic but via a diversity of techniques, programs, and sites. The primary motivation behind the work stems from a belief that places have souls and therefore rights.“If we allow ourselves to believe that places have a soul,” said Raunaud, “we are more inclined to respect them, to preserve them.” But for all the talk of a building’s internal life force, it is external pressures that rule the design of the Urban Fractal Tower in Hudson Square. While the pair cast the project in poetic terms (they spoke of it as being “grown from the soil” and likened its silhouette to a “vernacular verticality”) keen observers will see something more banal: a savvy development modeled on vintage New York towers and oriented to take advantage of million-dollar river views.